Tracking Snow Water Equivalent in the Tuolumne Basin

  • Released Wednesday, October 31st, 2018
  • Updated Friday, August 25th, 2023 at 12:10AM
  • ID: 4690

This visualization focuses on the Tuolumne Basin, located within the boundaries of Yosemite National Park, which supplies water via the Hetch Hetchy aqueduct to the San Francisco Bay Area. Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) data collected by the Airborne Snow Observatory (ASO) between 2014 and 2017 is depicted in blues and whites, showing how the snowpack changes over time. This version includes a colorbar.

The Airborne Snow Observatory is an Earth-based mission designed to collect data on the snow melt flowing out of major water basins in the western United States. The data could help improve water management for 1.5 billion people worldwide who rely on snow melt for their water supply.

The Airborne Snow Observatory is a collaboration between NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Department of Water Resources.

This visualization focuses on the Tuolumne Basin, located within the boundaries of Yosemite National Park, which supplies water via the Hetch Hetchy aqueduct to the San Francisco Bay Area. Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) data collected by the Airborne Snow Observatory (ASO) between 2014 and 2017 is depicted in blues and whites, showing how the snowpack changes over time. This version includes has no colorbar.

Colorbar for Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) in meters

Colorbar for Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) in meters

This visualization focuses on the Tuolumne Basin, located within the boundaries of Yosemite National Park, which supplies water via the Hetch Hetchy aqueduct to the San Francisco Bay Area. Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) data collected by the Airborne Snow Observatory (ASO) between 2014 and 2017 is depicted in blues and whites, showing how the snowpack changes over time. This version includes has no colorbar and no label for Tuolumne Basin.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

Datasets used in this visualization

Airborne Snow Observatory (ASO) SWE (A.K.A. snow water equivalent (SWE)) (Collected with the Imaging spectrometer, LIDAR sensor)
Observed Data NASA/JPL, California Department of Water Resources

NASA/JPL has created the Airborne Snow Observatory (ASO), a coupled imaging spectrometer and scanning lidar system. ASO uses the imaging spectrometer to quantify spectral albedo, broadband albedo, and radiative forcing by dust and black carbon in snow. The scannin

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